Page 27 of Extreme Romancing in Idaho

My wooziness eased, and I was hard-pressed not to rub my hands along her inner thigh and pull her onto my lap. I breathed in deeply again, for an entirely different reason.

No. I wasn’t going to act on my attraction to this woman. She tortured me daily, and she needed my help to keep a man on her line. Although, right now, she was the most alluring thing I’d ever seen.

I sat up and shoved her clothes at her. “Get dressed. Call’s in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m gonna need your help—”

“What?” No way in hell. I only had so much restraint. “I’m not helping you get dressed.”

She laughed. “You wish.” She pulled the toilet paper away from her injury along her hairline. Once again, my blood fled from my face to my extremities. “This’ll need a butterfly bandage.”

I was shaking my head before she stopped speaking. “I can’t do it. I don’t do blood.” With the mention of a butterfly bandage, I focused on the imagery it created, of bright and vibrant butterflies dancing with the wind.

She laughed even harder at that. “You, an extreme sports expert, can’t handle bandaging a small cut.”

“You saw me practically pass out at the sight of it, and now you want me to touch it?” I’d tried to pinpoint when I’d developed this reaction to blood, but I’d never been successful. It must be genetic.Takeaway, I’m no nurse.

“If I can jump off a telephone poll, you can help bandage my wound.”

“Can’t we get your mom to do it?”

“And interrupt Law & Order: SVU?” She gestured to the stairs with her free hand. “Be my guest.”

I glared at her and thought back to our conversation about having a penis. If I was tough enough to jump off bridges, I could do this. “Fine. What do you need me to do?”

Keeping the toilet paper pressed to her cut, she shuffled through the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a first aid kit. Did she stash these in all her bathrooms? How often did she get hurt?

She unclasped the plastic buckles and grabbed the few items she needed while I gave myself a pep talk. Come on, Remi. I’d jumped off the cliffs at Navagio Beach in Greece, skydived in the Himalayas, hiked to the top of Machu Picchu, and surfed with the sharks in Australia. I could handle touching the edges of flappy skin and fatty tissue.

One glimpse in the mirror showed me how pale my face was even while Angie kept the tissue pressed to her head. She struggled to open a bandage with one hand.

“Here.” I took the slip from her. “Let me.” I pulled the bandage open and set it on the counter—a white oblong thing with no butterflies on it. Boring.

She handed me a bottle of super glue with raised eyebrows. Without needing further instruction, I tugged off the top.

“All I need you to do is keep my hair free of the cut. Can you manage that?”

I nodded but didn’t say anything and stepped closer to her. Aside from the ropes course, I hadn’t been this close to Angie in the week I’d worked for her. I kept my distance and did my job while we bickered about something I’d done wrong.

She smelled of hairspray and whatever coconut shampoo she used. Carefully, I gathered her hair, my hands brushing her neck just behind her ear, some strands still warm from the curlers. My eyes dipped to where her pulse thudded against her throat, to where I loved to tease delicate skin. What would Angie do if I bent and touched my lips to her neck and checked to see if she tasted of coconut?

Oblivious to my thoughts, Angie leaned closer to the mirror and pulled the tissue away from her gash. The blood flow had slackened, but only slightly. I slowed my breathing and focused on containing the golden strands of Angie’s hair.

She ran a bead of glue along her broken skin and took in a sharp breath. “It stings.”

I swayed on my feet and dropped my gaze to the counter, the black in my vision becoming stronger. I refused to pass out. Angie would never let me live it down.

“What am I supposed to do in this call again?” Angie asked as she held her skin together.

“You’re going to answer, but then fifteen to twenty minutes in, tell him you’ve got to go,” I said, grateful to have something else to think about.

“I still think that’ll make him think I’m not interested.” She narrowed her eyes. “Darn. My makeup is ruined. Hand me the butterfly bandage.”

I placed the white strip in her hand. “If they’re going to name it after a butterfly, they should at least print butterflies on it.”

Angie laughed while she stuck it over her cut, tightening the edges of her skin together. I could never work in the medical field. Even though Angie was a pain in my ass, she had my respect.

“That’s all you needed me for?” I still held her hair, enjoying its silkiness far too much.

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